(reposting from my forum)
I contacted Kale/Angelo Salese to ask about future progress of SSAZ emulation (next step of which should be making 3D models and ground visible). He said that he and Haze are mainly 2D experts and dont have necessarily knowledge of the 3D stuff. This means we will get some emulation progress only after someone from 3D MAMEdev experts decides to work on HNG64 driver in its present state - when it will happen is completely unknown unless I will manage to contact them myself.
On a brighter side, I should remember that other HNG64 games display 3D models, and the reason why SS64 and SSAZ dont, may be simply because their very gameplay was unaccessible to any testing for all but several recent days. Since both games now properly enter gameplay, and their problem is basically 3D textures being invisible, theres a big chance that this 3D problem can be solved in same fashion as it was solved previously in other HNG64 games.
(end repost)
I also sent him testing results, a link to SSAZ article on my site, and a link to sirorim youtube channel (which has alot of SSAZ video footage) to use as references.
Right now I am interested in possibility of ripping 2D sprites from SSAZ (backdrops/effects), and since several sprite layers are displayed there at same time, I would need a way to enable/disable different sprite layers. Maybe I should ask mamedevs about mame cheat file that will allow to toggle those layers on/off..
@ Deuce
SS64 and SSAZ games right now display only 2D stuff, that means user interface (menus, lifebars), 2D backdrops, and special effects from hits/special moves.
Therefore, in those games testing larglely comes down to which 2D effects are displayed and which arent. I think I got most of them checked, but you can test games, too, this basically involves performing all special moves of characters both in MAME and on actual hardware. Since both SS64 and SSAZ are emulated faster than they should, inputting some special moves can become tricky.
As for Buriki One, its controls dont respond in MAME right now, so you can only view (and check emulation quality) of the intro. In last update they fixed palettes of all the textures, and major graphics bugs there consists in some parts of 3D character models missing. I dont think Buriki One will have much to test until they will fix the controls.
Video references, well I sent them this
http://www.youtube.com/user/sirorim
as video reference source for SSAZ
and I think this channel (which I havent sent to them yet)
http://www.youtube.com/user/SupremeJudge
can serve as reference for Buriki One